The sudden resignation of UN peace envoy Kofi Annan from the peace efforts circle in Syria which evidently materialized under duress from the US government has caused extreme joy in Washington officials who now see this as a sign that the international community is prone to accept that Syrian President Bashar Assad had to go and that the peace efforts would eventually reach a cul-de-sac.

Likewise, the move has caused frustration in those who had pinned their hopes on the possible fruition of these efforts and those who had been resistant to see Syria as another potential Iraq for US military expeditions.

The Syrian foreign ministry expressed “regrets” at Annan’s announcement, saying, “The countries seeking to destabilize Syria are the ones that impeded and continue to impede the mission.”

Russia expressed sorrow over Annan’s departure. Russia's Ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin said on Thursday his country regrets Annan's decision to step down.

"We understand that it's his decision," Churkin told reporters. "We regret that he chose to do so. We have supported very strongly Kofi Annan's efforts. He has another month to go, and I hope this month is going to be used as effectively as possible under these very difficult circumstances."

Besides, Annan’s resignation has afforded Washington and its western allies the latitude to heap blame on China and Russia for what they claim to be an obstruction of democracy in Syria.

The United States on Thursday blamed China and Russia for the resignation of UN peace envoy Kofi Annan on the refusal of the two countries to back resolutions targeting Syrian President Bashar Assad.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said, “His resignation highlights the failure in the United Nations Security Council of Russia and China to support meaningful resolutions against Assad that would have held Assad accountable for his failure to abide by the Annan plan."

"Those vetoes... were highly regrettable and placed both Russia and China on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of the Syrian people."

For its part, said on Thursday said Kofi Annan's resignation was partly due to China and Russia's opposition to sanctions on the Damascus regime. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle also said President Bashar Assad had not lived up to its vows to implement Annan's peace plan.

"It is clear that Kofi Annan relinquished his mandate in part because of the deadlock in the UN Security Council, of which Russia and China" are permanent members, a statement said.

"It is high time that Russia and China stop shielding" Assad, it said.

Annan’s words upon his abrupt resignation are fraught with secret fear, "When the Syrian people desperately need action, there continues to be finger pointing and name calling in the Security Council," Annan said. "It is impossible for me or anyone to compel the Syrian government and also the opposition to take the steps to bring about the political process. As an envoy, I can't want peace more than the protagonists, more than Security Council or the international community, for that matter."

Now with Annan’s resignation and the emerging void to be filled by a third party in order to resolve the crisis in Syria, Washington seems to be gaining firm foothold in the Security Council to push for a military invasion.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague has saidthe UK will increase the assistance it is giving to Syrian opposition forces in the coming weeks. In other words, the UK has already been giving out financial and military help to the insurgents in Syria.

British media confirm that military chiefs in London are already drawing up contingency plans if the UK ever decides to deploy troops to Syria and that the former Special Air Service (SAS) soldiers are training the insurgents in Syria in military tactics from weapon handling, leadership and the use of communications systems to tackle the Syrian government. ...read more

Here is a very interesting development from Reuters which was taken down from their site as quick as it was posted. I had read it, went to check another article, came back and it was gone! Several Google feeds that picked up the story have also lost their feed. Anyhow I found a message board where someone did a copy & paste, so grateful he/she did!

Major development indeed and check out the video or Syrian Army reinforcements being deployed to Aleppo. Doesn't look like an army that is in anyway stretched or short of resources. Looks like the NATO rats are about to get few cans of whoop-ass opened on them this weekend!

Quote

Rebel resistance collapses in key suburbsThe Syrian rebels fighting the forces of Assad have fallen in key districts of their stronghold Salah Al Deen in Aleppo. This comes hours after the army has announced that it has destroyed the communication network provided by Turkey. Earlier the rebel forces have complained that they are running low on ammunition as the city has been completely surrounded by government forces, coupled with lack of communications, has left the rebels in disarray. Several trucks with mounted heavy machine guns have been destroyed, leading to the deaths of 20 rebels.

According to footage on the ground, the rebel forces in Aleppo have failed to take Aleppo Citadel, contrary to earlier reported news. A journalist on the ground, Hussein Murtada, has reported that an attempt to damage the ancient Citadel’s walls by rebel missiles was repelled by security forces, resulting in the death of General Mustafa Al Sheikh and Abdul Jabar Aqede, field Marshals of the Free Syrian Army in Aleppo.

Columns of Syrian tanks were seen entering the city earlier in the day, suggesting that the army was ready to route out all resistance in the western districts which have presence of rebel forces who have evicted residents from the area....read more at link provided above article...

This is a very unhappy statement, we know; but completely true nevertheless. Think about the role of the MSM in the run up to the War in Iraq in 2003. Everyone knew it was based on bald-faced lies, contrived falsehoods and miscellaneous fabrications. And yet it proceeded in the face of great worldwide opposition. A very unfortunate situation indeed, especially in light of the current predicament in Iraq.

Were one to dissect the entire role of the MSM in the execution of this crime against humanity, its culpability would be quite obvious and thoroughly damning. Simply put, without the media there would not have been a blatant war of aggression waged upon the people of Iraq. Ditto that for Afghanistan … and Libya … and Serbia … and Pakistan … and Viet Nam … and Korea … … …

As the title of this essays implies, whoever controls the media controls the switch for starting and ending every war, conflict and minor skirmish, anywhere on the planet. About this fact of of life, there is no doubt. Likewise, we see on the flip side of ‘peace’ that the MSM controls the myriad conflicts and dramas which abound in every form of media, even throughout the alternative news media (through the process of media referral and reflex*). How difficult is it to separate fact from fiction on so many alternative news sites? Many websites have been co-opted and don’t even know it. Unwittingly, some alternative sites serve the very same purpose as the MSM of which they profess their vow to expose.

*Alternative media reflex is the anticipated reaction of the alternative media to fake stories in the MSM which often serves to legitimize them. MSMedia referral is the outright exportation of fraudulent stories from the MSM to the alternative media carried with more ‘depth and context’ thereby giving them credibility.

When we say that there is no stopping the force of destiny, particularly with regard to the waging of war, what are we really saying?

By way of illustration, we need only to look at the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004. In both instances, the MSM played the vital role in ensuring that each election would be stolen outright by a proud warmonger. Even though votes were not properly counted, a Supreme Court rubber stamps an obviously fraudulent election. However, there are two critical points which cannot be overlooked. Each concerns the inviolable laws karma and destiny.

I. A nation always gets the leadership it deserves per the laws of national karma and the outworking of personal destinies. No exceptions granted except by highly exceptionalDivine Decree.

II. The leadership, which guarantees that war will be waged when its time has come, will always be installed regardless of the illegal or immoral means when it is time for war to be declared.

This second statement is a tough one, especially for all us peacemakers. Let’s fast forward to 2008 and evaluate what the Noble Peace Prize winner Barack Obama has done in the war department??? Let’s take a very close look at Afghanistan … Iraq … Iran … Pakistan … Libya … Syria … Honduras (rubber stamped a coup d’etat) … Paraguay (rubber stamped a coup d’etat) … as well as the numerous, clandestine acts of USA militarism all over Africa.

The Biggest Culprit of ’em all

When the Old Gray Lady* – the New York Times – is responsible for starting more wars than any other single newspaper in world history, you know we have a serious problem. The NYT is supposed to be the bastion of liberal, progressive, democratic thought and sentiment (supposedly anti-war???) … and yet it is directly responsible for more wartime deaths worldwide than any other print media on the face of the planet … for all time!....read more.

US Officials Fear Weapons Could Be Used on Civilian Aircraft

Reports coming out of Syria today suggest that the Free Syrian Army has been given approximately two dozen shoulder mounted surface-to-air missiles to use against Syrian warplanes, the first time the rebel faction has acquired such weaponry.The arms were apparently delivered to the rebels by Turkey, though whether they provided them directly or they were “gifted” by way of one of the many Gulf states also pouring cash and weaponry into the rebellion is unknown.

A Free Syrian Army spokesman denied that the missiles had been delivered, but claimed that the faction had a “surprise” for the Syrian military, which it is currently fighting across the northern portion of the country.

The Obama Administration is not believed to be involved in this particularly effort to arm the rebels, and US officials have expressed concern that the addition of SAMs to the rebel arsenal could have unforeseen consequences, and that the rebels might attackcivilian aircraft in the area as well as warplanes.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Saman MohammadiInfowars.comAugust 1, 2012Following unofficial reports by Voltaire Network that Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia was assassinated on July 26, analysts pointed to the government of Syria as the prime suspect. The motive is clear: revenge. Days earlier, Prince Bandar reportedly oversaw an intelligence operation that caused the deaths of Assad’s top generals.

But the question that must be asked is who else wanted Prince Bandar dead besides Syria? What if a different party is responsible for his death? There are several interpretations about who was behind Prince Bandar’s death because the Saudi leadership is not releasing any information about this shocking story. This article represents only one interpretation. It takes as its premise that the government in Washington is the suspect.

I admit this is conspiracy theorizing, but it is grounded in facts and history. In the attempt to find out why Prince Bandar was killed we must not concentrate on the obvious and point to Syria. Appearances can be deceiving in these situations. If it is shown with proof and official statements that Syria was responsible then take this article’s conclusions as a conspiracy theory, and nothing more.

But until the world knows with absolute certainty who killed Bandar Bush and why, it is our task to ask questions and look at every possible angle. We must keep in mind that many people wanted to see Prince Bandar go away; for some, permanently. A man like him makes a lot of enemies.

Last year, historian Webster G. Tarpley explained on the Alex Jones show that Prince Bandar was preparing to say goodbye to Washington and move Saudi Arabia closer to nuclear Pakistan and China. Over the years, dissent within the Saudi royal family has grown, and it seems that the question of which nuclear power to look to for protection has divided the leadership the most.

The recent assassination of Prince Bandar makes Tarpley’s analysis from last year that much more important. According to Tarpley, Prince Bandar was distancing himself from the American Eagle. He knew his regime was targeted by Washington for regime change, so he started looking at Pakistan to provide security. Naturally, Washington would be pissed by Bandar’s aggressiveness.

Prince Bandar Bush was truly a man of two clans. As Washington’s adopted son, his fate was tied to a hostile house that is famous for disloyaty and betrayal. He was planning to strike against his American father, and as a result he was no longer considered the favourite son in the family. The American father wasn’t in the mood of tolerating a rebellion. So he took out his whip and made sure the Saudi prince knew who was the boss.

There can be only one prince of darkness in this world, and he resides in the White House in Washington.

It is generally known that Prince Bandar was one of Al-Qaeda’s chief financiers but he should not be made the scapegoat. He acted merely as an executioner for the tyrants who control the CIA, Wall Street, and the White House. The sin of creating Al-Qaeda belongs to the CIA alone....read more

RT have followed up Syrian TV channel Addounia's expose of the faked defection of Ghatan Sleiba which was reported by BBC and the Guardian, who claimed he had worked for their channel. As if one lie wasn't enough he also claimed he had worked for another Syrian channel Ekhbaria. The western mainstream media is really scraping the barrel circulating a lie that can be so easily exposed as RT explains.

: Unarmed civilians? From the US State Department and outward through its tentacles across the corporate media, the so-called "Free Syrian Army" is continuously referred to interchangeably as "civilians" and "activists." In reality they are heavily armed, foreign-backed, and include amongst their ranks a sizable proportion of foreign fighters - betraying the very name Free "Syrian" Army. Even by "activist" accounts however, the recent "massacre" in Tremseh, Syria appears to be in fact a battle militants lost, with the vast majority of the deaths being armed fighters, not civilians. ...read more

France has said it will call for an emergency meeting on Syria as soon as it takes over the presidency of the UN Security Council in August, but many wonder what the gathering can accomplish. ...read more

* Heavy Losses Inflicted upon Terrorists in Aleppo and Homs* Chavez: Venezuela Supports Russian and Chinese Stances on Respecting Syria's Sovereignty * Nasrallah: Syria Rejected to Disarm Resistance because It Considers It Part of Pan-Arab Security Strategy* Doc signed by Obama to support terrorists in Syria

Amid the escalating cycle of violence, President Bashar al-Assad’s regime continues to hold Syria’s main cities and operate effectively in the countryside. The armed opposition has failed to seize any of the cities, block them off from the army, or assert its control over them. But it has succeeded in spreading in rural areas and turning them against the regime, and it retains the capacity to stage hit-and-run attacks in urban neighborhoods.

This has proven to be the outcome, in turn, in the cities or Deraa, Hama, Idlib and Homs, followed by Damascus, and now apparently in Aleppo, too. All the battles in these cities culminated in the army asserting control, but without being able to prevent further attacks on its positions and troops.

The conflict in Syria is becoming a war of territory. Whoever wins it, wins in the negotiations. The behavior of both sides bears that out.

When the armed opposition decided to launch its battle for Damascus, following the July 18 bombing of the national security headquarters, it sought to mount a surprise offensive that would divide the city into several sections. The plan was to seize suburbs adjacent to the airport road, and advance towards the center so as to split off various districts from each other.The opposition had planned for the assault on the capital to begin at the start of Ramadan (July 20), and expected to have announced its capture by Thursday July 25.But the army got wind of the plan and mounted a pre-emptive assault on July 13 on locations where gunmen had been deployed, pounding suburban orchards which they infiltrated with tank-fire. The opposition then prematurely went public about its plan before it had carried it out, further aiding its own exposure. The commander of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), Colonel Riyadh al-Asaad, was among the first to proclaim the imminent “liberation of Damascus.”

In conjunction with the July 18 bombing, which targeted a meeting of the regime’s Crisis Management Cell, a takeover of Damascus would have been sufficient to trigger the collapse of the regime. The masterminds of the bombing had expected the two men in charge of protecting the capital – the president’s cousin General Hafez Makhlouf, who heads the Republican Guard, and his brother Maher, a brigade commander in the Fourth Army Division – to be present. They were not, and do not usually attend such meetings. But the assumption seems to have been that their deaths would paralyze the Fourth Division, which is deployed along a 30-kilometer perimeter around Damascus (under the command of General Aous Aslan, son of former chief-of-staff General Ali Aslan), and undermine its ability to defend the city.

The armed encroachment into the heart of Damascus, closing in from the suburbs and seizing major crossroads, coupled with the assassination of the four senior officers killed in the July 18 bombing, was intended to be the climax of the opposition’s confrontation with the regime. The opposition had planned for the assault on the capital to begin at the start of Ramadan (July 20), and expected to have announced its capture by Thursday July 25.

The rebel offensive in Aleppo was not an integral part of the plan to take Damascus, but became a priority after that failed.

There has been much speculation as to why the attack was mounted.

It has been suggested that it was launched on the advice of the recently defected General Manaf Tlass.

The rebel offensive in Aleppo was not an integral part of the plan to take Damascus, but became a priority after that failed.Others have linked it to the defection to Turkey of General Mohammad Mufleh, the city’s former intelligence chief. He was appointed two months ago and tasked with contacting tribes in the Aleppo countryside in a bid to keep them out of the conflict with the armed opposition. He is believed to have facilitated the infiltration of opposition gunmen into the city before fleeing to Turkey, in particular the three southern districts - Salaheddin, Bab al-Hadeed and al-Sukkari – which have witnessed the fiercest fighting of late. Mufleh is also said to have pocketed the money which the regime entrusted to him to help ensure the cooperation of the rural tribes.

But the main rationale for starting the battle of Aleppo was the city’s proximity to Turkey. Its seizure by opposition fighters would enable the creation of a buffer zone linking it to the Turkish border just 45 kilometers away, from which the regime could be ejected. This could then be extended to the Idlib countryside, the most militantly anti-regime part of the country, followed by the Homs countryside. Thus, for the first time since the crisis began 16 months ago, the armed opposition would be able to assume sole control of a sizeable patch of territory and proceed to expand it.

Such an enclave would be provided with Turkish air cover to protect it from Syrian army attacks, yet Ankara would be able to claim that it did not establish it itself as it was created by the Syrian opposition. Turkey has long been speaking incessantly about a prospective buffer zone under its protection along the border, without taking direct steps to bring one into being. It has sufficed with arming, training and advising the opposition, facilitating the infiltration of fighters into areas where the army is deployed, setting up an operations room for Asaad and the FSA command, and establishing refugee camps.

The armed opposition still needs a major military victory to translate into a political gain that confounds the regime. But this has constantly eluded it.

The main rationale for starting the battle of Aleppo was the city’s proximity to Turkey. It has scored at least two major successes against the regime. First, by engaging it in open warfare in most of the country, spreading chaos and turbulence and putting the president at loggerheads with much of the international community. Secondly, with the killing of senior regime figures in a sophisticated intelligence operation, a move which was certainly not hatched by the opposition, but whose fruits it apparently reaped.

Yet despite the imbalance in military power, both sides retain the ability to hurt each other. The army has the firepower to hammer opposition gunmen and pulverize the villages they occupy. The armed opposition shows greater professionalism and experience by the day in mounting attacks, bombings and assassinations and targeting soldiers and officers.

The escalating violence can only mean that neither side is minded to consider a political solution to the crisis based on a transfer of power. The president is not behaving as though he entertains the idea, but appears more determined than ever to hold on to power. The opposition is equally uninterested in a share of power, but wants it all, and all at once. Both sides believe their positions are justified by the unprecedented level of violence being exchanged between them.

The fact of the matter is that whoever loses control on the ground, loses any place at the negotiating table.

Kofi Annan is quitting as UN-Arab League peace envoy for Syria, UN leader Ban Ki-moon announced on Thursday, as the civil war spiraled further out of control.

Ban announced "with deep regret" the resignation of Annan, who was named to the post on February 23.

"Mr. Annan has informed me, and the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, Mr. Nabil Elaraby, of his intention not to renew his mandate when it expires on 31 August 2012," Ban said in a statement, adding that he and Elaraby were in discussions on appointing a successor to Annan.

"Kofi Annan deserves our profound admiration for the selfless way in which he has put his formidable skills and prestige to this most difficult and potentially thankless of assignments," Ban said.

The statement added that Annan had said he would not renew his mandate when it expires on August 31.

Annan was said to blame "finger pointing and name calling" at the UN Security Council for his departure.

The Security Council has repeatedly failed to reach a consensus on how to deal with the Syrian crisis, with Russia and China three times vetoing resolutions proposed by the West.

The former UN Secretary-General did succeed in getting Security Council backing for his six-point peace plan, but it failed to stop Syria's slide into civil war.

The plan, which called for a daily ceasefire and immediate negotiations between the regime and opposition groups, was not implemented and both sides ignored an April 12 ceasefire deadly.

Annan said on Thursday he was hopeful that the six-point plan would continue.(Al-Akhbar, Reuters)

Obama’s order, approved earlier this year and known as an intelligence “finding,” broadly permits the CIA and other U.S. agencies to provide support that could help the rebels oust Assad.

This and other developments signal a shift toward growing, albeit still circumscribed, support for Assad’s armed opponents — a shift that intensified following last month’s failure of the U.N. Security Council to agree on tougher sanctions against the Damascus government.

The White House is for now apparently stopping short of giving the rebels lethal weapons, even as some U.S. allies do just that.

But U.S. and European officials have said that there have been noticeable improvements in the coherence and effectiveness of Syrian rebel groups in the past few weeks. That represents a significant change in assessments of the rebels by Western officials, who previously characterized Assad’s opponents as a disorganized, almost chaotic, rabble.

Precisely when Obama signed the secret intelligence authorization, an action not previously reported, could not be determined.

The full extent of clandestine support that agencies like the CIA might be providing also is unclear. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined comment....read more

Rick Rozoff – Stop NATO. -Recent reports detail a Turkish military buildup on the Turkish-Syrian border with various accounts mentioning the deployment of troops, tanks, armored personnel carriers and missile batteries two kilometers from Syrian territory, with 25 tanks from the Mardin 70th Mechanized Brigade engaged in exercises along the border.

By Patrick Martin

2 August 2012

US-backed forces opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are stepping up their offensive in Aleppo, the country’s largest city, amid with reports Wednesday that the rebels had engaged in summary execution of dozens of captured loyalist police and soldiers. A gruesome video of one such slaughter was widely distributed on the Internet.

The scale of the fighting was shown in the reported storming of a police station at al-Marju in the Salhein district of Aleppo by a force of more than 700 "rebel" fighters. The 45-man security detachment inside resisted the attack fiercely until a large bomb was thrown into the building, killing at least 15 of the defenders. Most of the rest then surrendered.

One video showed four men, accused of being members of the pro-Assad Shabbiha militia force, lined up against a wall and forced to kneel, then mowed down with automatic weapons as their killers chanted “Allahu Akbar.” The victims were said to be members of the Barri family, a clan linked to Assad through adherence to the Alawite religion, a branch of Shiite Islam.

In another video, from the al-Marju police station, showed a rebel desecrating the corpse of the station commander, blowing his head off.

Fighting raged across much of Aleppo Wednesday, as anti-Assad fighters overran three police stations while helicopter gunships roared overhead and carried out strikes against the rebels. Heavy shelling was reported in the Salaheddine district in the southwest part of the city, scene of some of the most violent clashes of the past week. Most residents have fled worst-hit districts of the city, with at least 200,000 refugees from the city of two million.

McClatchy News Service reported that that the Assad regime was refraining from all-out destruction of contested areas in Aleppo, in contrast to its approach in other cities such as Homs, one of the centers of the anti-Assad forces.

“We haven’t seen the sort of intense shelling we’ve seen in other parts of the country,” a representative of the US-aligned Human Rights Watch told McClatchy. “I think the government recognizes it has a lot of support in Aleppo.”

Fear of the predominately Sunni-based opposition forces is particularly strong in the Christian minority, several hundred thousands strong in Aleppo. There have been numerous reports of religion-based ethnic cleansing in Syria, with Sunni insurgents killing or driving out Alawites and Christians, and pro-Assad forces targeting Sunnis.

The British daily Guardian carried a report from the Syrian-Iraqi border documenting the takeover of a border town by Al Qaeda fighters seeking to replace Assad with a Sunni fundamentalist regime.

NBC News reported that the anti-Assad forces have acquired some two dozen surface-to-air missiles, delivered to them through Turkey, the NATO ally of the United States where most of the rebels have their supply and training bases. Such missiles could play a key role in the increasingly militarized conflict with the Assad regime, which has deployed both fighter jets and helicopters to Aleppo.

There were unconfirmed reports of rebel units operating captured armored vehicles in the region between Aleppo and the Turkish border, about 30 miles north of the city, as well as pick-up trucks with heavy machine guns mounted on them.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar are reportedly spearheading the effort to supply the anti-Assad forces with heavy weaponry. However, this campaign also has enlisted the support of Turkey, which controls the supply lines, and the United States, which is the ultimate source of the weaponry and must approve any transfer to the rebels.

The Turkish army staged tank exercises near the Syrian border Wednesday, the most provocative such action since the political crisis erupted in Syria 17 months ago. Some 25 tanks were deployed in the Nusaybin district of Mardin province, only a mile from the border crossing with the Syrian city of Qamishli. Turkey’s Supreme Military Council began a four-day meeting Wednesday, bringing together Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and top military commanders.

The military muscle-flexing was directed not only at the Assad regime, but also against the fighters of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the Kurdish separatist guerrilla force that has waged sporadic warfare inside Turkey for over three decades. PKK fighters have begun operating openly on the streets of Kurdish-populated towns in the far northeastern region of Syria, after the Assad regime removed its troops to focus on defending areas more vital to maintaining its power—the capital city, Damascus, and the main business center, Aleppo.Assad issued a written message to his troops on Tuesday, his first public statement since the July 18terrorist bombing in Damascus that killed four of his top aides, including his brother-in-law. The statement declared, “The fate of our people and our nation, past, present and future, depends on this battle.”

In yet another step towards open intervention, the US government has approved fundraising for the Free Syrian Army, the main opposition military force, within the United States. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control approved a license last week for a front organization called the Syrian Support Group “to engage in otherwise prohibited financial activities with the Free Syrian Army,” a spokesman announced Tuesday. The funds would go to the FSA to pay soldiers’ salaries or buy weapons and other supplies.

The Obama administration's intentions were expressed in a front-page article in the Washington Post Wednesday, with the extraordinary headline, “For besieged Syrian dictator Assad, only exit may be body bag.” The article observed: “A growing consensus in Washington and in Middle East capitals now holds that Assad—a man once viewed as a moderate capable of reform—will be forced from power only by death or capture.”

The newspaper noted that while US officials had suggested that a Yemen-style negotiated transfer of power had been considered possible as late as June, there was no longer any likelihood of such a course of action. Instead, Washington viewed Assad as a likely candidate for the fate of Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan ruler murdered by US-backed forces less than a year ago.

The Post article dovetails entirely with the grisly videos of summary executions in Aleppo. American imperialism is planing atrocities in Syria that would put the events in Libya in the shade, and dwarf the killings that have already taken place.

Mehdi al-Harati, leader of the Liwa al-Umma brigade, and his fighters are under no illusions about the challenges they face, writes MARY FITZGERALD , Foreign Affairs Correspondent in northern Syria

EARLIER THIS summer Housam Najjair was in Dublin watching gruesome videos of some of the most violent episodes of the 16-month revolt against Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad.“The horror of what I saw was enough for me to decide something must be done,” he says. Now Najjair, a 33-year-old building contractor with a Libyan father and Irish mother, is hunkered down in a corner of northern Syria with his Libyan-born brother-in-law Mehdi al-Harati, leader of a recently established conglomeration of rebel brigades under the name Liwa al-Umma, meaning Banner of the Nation.

Najjair had never picked up a gun until last year, when he joined the Tripoli Brigade formed and led by Harati during the Libyan revolution.

Theirs was one of the first rebel units to enter the Libyan capital last August. Now Najjair and Harati say they want to transfer the lessons learned during the Libyan revolution to Syrians hoping to achieve their own. “We feel as if we are their brothers,” says Najjair, sitting on the floor of a safe house with his gun by his side. “We want to assist in whatever way we can.”

Liwa al-Umma, which was established three months ago, is made up of more than 6,000 men, 90 per cent of whom are Syrian. The rest are mostly Libyans and other Arabs. It is separate to the rebel Free Syrian Army and its units are scattered throughout the country. Recent YouTube videos show a number of Syrian rebel groupings announcing they have joined Liwa al-Umma.“We couldn’t understand why the world was failing to respond to the plight of the Syrian people,” says Najjair. “When they didn’t take a stand, we decided to act.” With Harati, a naturalised Irish citizen whose family lives in Dublin, and Najjair are several others from Ireland. They include an engineer who is helping Liwa al-Umma register all its members before distributing ID cards, and two men in their early 20s who are experiencing war for the first time.

One, a thoughtful, bespectacled 22-year-old whose father is a surgeon in Ireland, admits his parents were concerned when he announced he wanted to go fight in Syria. “They respect and trust Sheikh Mehdi so when they learned I was coming to join him here, they felt a little better,” he says. “But, yes, they are still worried for my safety out here.”

He frames his reasons for coming to Syria in philosophical terms. “I see my life as being about three things: searching for the truth; defending the weak against injustice and the oppressors; and helping to build peace in the world. The battle here in Syria combines all three.”

A 21-year-old with a wispy beard and strong Dublin accent explains why he decided to make the dangerous journey into Syria, despite never handling weapons in his life. “It is impossible to just sit back and watch Assad killing innocent people,” he says. “The slaughter of children in particular struck at my heart. I felt I just had to do something.”

The fighters from Ireland keep in contact with loved ones back home through snatched conversations on satellite phones or emails and Facebook whenever they get internet access. Najjair’s mother, Joanna, an Irish convert to Islam, leaves messages on his Facebook wall, telling him how proud she is of both he and Harati, and wishing they return home safely. Najjair, meanwhile, posts messages on Facebook that reflect his anger at what he sees as the world’s dithering over the escalating crisis.

“Where is the world’s conscience?,” he wrote in a recent post. “I can’t believe they can stand back and watch???.... well.... that’s ok!!!...we will not forget you people of Syria. We will fight with you until the end..when injustice becomes law, resistance becomes a duty.” Najjair complains about the Assad regime’s attempts to portray foreign fighters like him as extremists linked to al-Qaeda. “This is not an al-Qaeda jihad, this is a people’s revolution and we want to help.”

None of the fighters from Ireland are under any illusions over the challenges ahead. “Here there are so many different factions, objectives, and ideologies,” says Najjair. Harati nods in agreement. “The complexity of the situation here makes me feel like we were just playing games in Libya last year,” he says.